Displaying 2,551 To 2,580 Of 3,373 Comments boomer, you can dot my “I” any time! » Posted By whatsthatsound On September 22, 2010 @ 3:46 pm Gotta be Cincy. The Five-way refers to the chili they serve at Skyline. I’m an ex-Ohioan myself. » Posted By whatsthatsound On September 21, 2010 @ 11:21 pm Does a Dog Have the Buddha Nature? Most likely you go your way, and I’ll go mine on this. If so, okay, but I disagree. I think the great intuiters of our race, both ancient and modern (and shout out to Questinia, who introduced me to one of them, William Irwin Thompson), have greater insight into the inherent nature of this, to my belief system, intelligent universe than the scientists. » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 4, 2010 @ 8:17 pm sometimes, wherever she feels like it! Sometimes, in the little square toilets we’ve got for her on both floors. One of them she started off using as a bed and refused to use for its intended purpose, but we more or less broke her of that! » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 4, 2010 @ 6:41 pm I agree with you that the “brain is a wondrous organ”, and I agree with the OP that you can’t “dissect consciousness”. The brain, to my mind, can be considered analogous to a radio, a computer, or a television. Exquisitely and intricately arranged to pick up signals and process them, but the signals do not originate in the brain, just as a radio program doesn’t exist in the machine in your car and little people aren’t putting on plays inside the television, as many of us as young children imagined they were. It is my belief that continued brain study will essentially come up short in actually locating consciousness in any mechanical process of the brain. Scientists will say that the evidence then indicates either that an unidentifiable gestalt is taking place within the organ, or that consciousness is located outside it. They won’t say they have found it, can regenerate it in a brain that has stopped functioning, or can reproduce it in a laboratory. The exciting thing about the times we live in now is that my belief will either be confirmed or disproved within the next few decades, if not sooner. » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 4, 2010 @ 4:16 pm ha ha! I can relate! » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 4, 2010 @ 4:03 pm Probably! But it seemed so good natured and conspiratory! You humans have your wine, and me and my pal here will do our thing! -that kinda thing! » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 4, 2010 @ 3:38 pm That is horrid! » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 3, 2010 @ 10:15 pm Well put, Kalima! » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 3, 2010 @ 12:30 am Animal stories. If you’re squeamish, stop reading at any time. First of all, we recently moved to a new neighborhood in Tokyo. There is a great little cafe where pets are welcome. The owner has a dachsund, Yuzu. We go there when it’s not crowded and take Rosie with us. Rosie and Yuzu are fascinated by each other. Especially Yuzu. He just can’t figure Rosie out! He’s never seen a ferret before, it seems. Anyway, let’s just say he got a liiiiiittle too excited last night, and had a little accident. We humans didn’t even notice it. But Rosie did. In the spirit of trans species harmony, she decided to squeeze out her own little present as a show of camaraderie. So when we three humans finally DID notice it, there were two little (one absolutely tiny) puddles settled side by side on the wooden floor. Animals are so weird. But the absolutely WEIRDEST story I’ve ever heard comes from my sister, who, like Patsy, has three dogs. One night they were making all kinds of noise out in the yard, baying and moaning in a kind of ghastly parody of harmony. What on Earth…???, she was thinking and went out to find out what was going on. What she saw was a tableaux out of Goya. A dead bird had fallen in the yard. The dogs had used their noses to nudge their poop to make a kind of circle around the bird. Then they stood outside the circle and did their group moan. She was gobsmacked! What ARE these pagan creatures I share my home with, she wondered? That story, to me, at least, points to some kind of unique awareness that dogs have. It seems to involve life, death, rejuvenation, the nature of fertilizer, etc. But that’s just my, human, interpretation. Who knows what the dogs were thinking? But they WERE. Thinking. » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 2, 2010 @ 5:28 pm Ferrets are more like dogs than cats. But what they are most like is toddlers! » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 2, 2010 @ 5:18 pm I really enjoyed reading this, and the comments. Like Questinia, I note that a lot of posts here are exploring the same subject from widely different angles. I agree with you, that those who are so triumphal about science (and if you had posted this at HP, ninety percent of the comments would be “wise ass” in nature, something along the lines of “Just woo woo. Nothing to see here” ) are out of the consciousness loop. By the way, I asked the wisest being I know if dogs have Buddha nature, and Rosie assures me they do. » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 2, 2010 @ 4:39 pm Hey! Cats are just misunderstood! » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 2, 2010 @ 4:31 pm What a fantastic story, Questinia! I am being perhaps immodest in suggesting that it is a companion, of sorts, to the post I just published recently. You and the pond are a perfect example of the way that humans must return to a deep connection with the earth, as I write. And your story seems like a smaller version of the Gaviotas project I mentioned in my post. The scientists themselves couldn’t have planned the way that fauna and folia began to appear as their work harmonized with nature and resulted in rain forest covering formerly desert land. The book, “Gaviotas: A village to reinvent the world” is a great read, I love the writing, your use of language, the beautiful photos. I love everything about this cyber-oasis you’ve gifted us with! » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 2, 2010 @ 3:44 am Nice story! And the line “I Love America” reminds me of the opening scene of The Godfather. » Posted By whatsthatsound On June 30, 2010 @ 9:28 pm ADDD: Attention Deficit Disorder Democracy Great article! I hear that. But I think we need a viable, We The People focused third party to emerge, and how! Because I agree with you that Republican Disaster Government got us into all these messes, there still isn’t enough difference between the two parties to ensure that the needs and rights of the common man will have priority no matter who is in power for four or eight years. If Republicans regain power again in the midterms and ’12 elections, I’ll think the average American voter is a fool, but at the same time I won’t be shedding tears for those poor Democrat incumbents that tried their hardest to right the ship, because they didn’t. » Posted By whatsthatsound On June 30, 2010 @ 9:34 pm Thank you, Kalima! » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 2, 2010 @ 4:40 pm Thanks for your thoughtful comments, AdLib. Although I didn’t intend for my essay to be a complete condemnation of technology, I nevertheless disagree with you that it is “more about personal responsibility”. It isn’t, in my opinion, because we all have to live in the over-engineered world that is being continually updated and modified, all around us and much of it invisible. We can choose not to buy the latest game software, but we can’t choose not to live in an unnatural atmosphere of microwaves and other invisible elements of the hooked up world we live in. Those navigation devices in cars are amazing, but isn’t it a bit scary that the car always knows EXACTLY where you are? There is a grid being held in place by satellites, I assume. What is its make-up? Does it interfere with our brain waves? Does it increase the cause of cancer? If so, would the manufacturers tell us that? The only one of those questions I can answer with confidence is the third! » Posted By whatsthatsound On June 30, 2010 @ 9:14 pm It just makes so much sense, that the veins would be substandard. The poor body’s cells are just doing the best they can with the faulty materials they are being given to work with. It is so sad. Because the cells themselves have the same potential as that of a healthy person, but they are getting shafted. » Posted By whatsthatsound On June 29, 2010 @ 7:58 am Yeah, I think that too. What has happened with technology so far makes me less than elated about the “Singularity” that Bauart mentions in his post. We just get bored and want something new. For a while we “can’t live without” it and then the Next Big Thing comes along. It’s not like this will stop. It won’t stop, singularity or no singularity, because it it is too isolated an experience. It is not even whole mind, but it needs to be whole body. We have to feel it down to the soles of our feet for it to sustain us. And for that, as you point out, there is Nature, not virtual reality. » Posted By whatsthatsound On June 29, 2010 @ 6:39 am No, I haven’t done much research into the chemistry of what happens. But the changes in some people are extraordinary. A lot of it is emotional. When people realize they can draw after a lifetime of buying into a childhood era slight that convinced them they weren’t good enough, they shed tears of both joy and anguish. People open up and change in many different ways. One man even said his golf game improved! » Posted By whatsthatsound On June 29, 2010 @ 6:34 am I completely agree! That’s why one of the things I feel a bit proud of is that I teach art skills which enhance the right brain modalities. Just doing my little bit to bring things back into balance! 😉 » Posted By whatsthatsound On June 29, 2010 @ 5:54 am That is exactly how I feel, Q, and I even go a step further to think that technology is a symbol for what humans are truly capable of, if we develop ourselves whole bodily and don’t just focus on what our analytic minds can come up with. Things like telepathy, psychic power, physical strength that we consider “superhuman” – perhaps these could be developed using a different KIND of “technology”. And if so, I would imagine our ecosystem would fare a tad better. But this is just speculating, and I’m probably going on so much I sound like I hate technology, which I don’t. I just believe it, and the analytic mind, have advanced too far too quickly, so that other latent human capacities have been truncated. » Posted By whatsthatsound On June 29, 2010 @ 4:41 am Hi Kesmarn » Posted By whatsthatsound On June 29, 2010 @ 4:34 am Your second paragraph is so heartbreakingly true, dildenusa. We are taking so many other life forms with us on our destructive joyride. God help them. And thanks for the info about Ferrets! I’ll look into that more. » Posted By whatsthatsound On June 28, 2010 @ 2:59 pm Fantastic comments, Kesmarn! I am flattered by the fact that you post them here. I would love to have an extended dialogue with you about these matters, as we clearly have both thought long and deeply about them. » Posted By whatsthatsound On June 28, 2010 @ 2:55 pm Very beautiful song, K! THank you. I have a Kiwi friend here who adores Scott Walker, and I confess he didn’t do much for me, until I heard this song, and while watching the magical Chagall images that accompany it. » Posted By whatsthatsound On June 28, 2010 @ 3:53 am that is a very good thing, and I’m really glad to hear it. Today has been particularly enervating, and summer is only now just getting started! » Posted By whatsthatsound On June 28, 2010 @ 3:27 am Please, Kalima, don’t take what I wrote personally. I wasn’t calling you wasteful, and I’m glad you have A/C. » Posted By whatsthatsound On June 27, 2010 @ 10:57 pm That is true, but I wouldn’t send us outward until we’ve learned to live better here, which is where the cosmic dust, that is everywhere, coalesced into us. » Posted By whatsthatsound On June 27, 2010 @ 10:35 pmComments Posted By whatsthatsound
And for folks who are not from Ohio, there is nothing suggestive about that! 🙂
Go Bucks!
I wonder, though, if you think that the universe has existed for, let’s say, fifteen billion years. In that time, it has behaved in extraordinary ways. It has followed what we call “laws of physics”, swirled in predictable patterns, spawned the chemicals that yielded life eventually through its movements, behaved more precisely in its “constants” etc. than any fine tuned human instrument, INVENTED reproduction, all the while having not the slightest idea what it was doing, or even that anything was being done! Then, somewhere around 13 and half billion years into its existence, awareness appeared, and then in a cosmic eye blink later that awareness evolved to the point where we, humans could look with awe upon our universe and understand some things about it with our, as you would have it, dubious “consciousness”? That before us, or beings like us, the universe was a mindless THING that nevertheless didn’t behave like other mindless things we can observe, but rather behaved in intricate, predictable and life yielding, and consciousness yielding ways?
It’s weird how they rush to call any belief in an intelligent universe “arrogant”. Where did they get that talking point? THEY are the arrogant ones, in that they so blithely dismiss the wisdom teachings of Buddhists, Hindi, Taoists, Native Americans, etc., because their OWN spiritual hero, Aristotle made all those guys unnecessary in their view. Such audacity! They think those men and women who dedicated their lives to knowing, who recorded their thoughts in the Upanishads, the I Ching, etc. were just “deluded fools”, and they call BELIEVERS arrogant????
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_2_8?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=gaviotas+a+village+to+reinvent+the+world&sprefix=gaviotas
and this is the story from their website
http://www.friendsofgaviotas.org/Friends_of_Gaviotas/Gaviotas_Forest/Gaviotas_Forest.html
From reading this, I think you would really enjoy it.
Your meals sound wonderful. And wonderfully healthful. I imagine your cells are practically glowing after a meal like that. I hope they realize how lucky they are to have such a wise person “in charge”!
If you’re willing, perhaps we could just share ideas here on this post for a while, at our own pace, and anyone can feel free to jump in. No matter how obese a person is, if they only eat chips, soda, burgers and fries, etc. they are “starving” themselves, aren’t they? First of all, they are doing so physically, as their cells’ enzymes are overtaxed with useless fat and undernourished with nutrients. Just as much so, they are starved spiritually, as they don’t revere the food they eat and don’t seem to recognize that asa soon as it comes into their mouths, it becomes them! If you don’t like how you look, you start with what goes inside! One of the things I love about Japan is the level of reverence for food here. The country is changing, and young folks don’t “get it” as much as their elders, but eating is like a kind of sacrament here. Japanese people LOVE food, and that shows in the slim, trim bodies so many of them maintain.
For me, I think one of the keys to our recovery is to reconnect with animals in a meaningful way. It is shocking how we have marginalized them from our lives. Were we so afraid of them during our hunter/gatherer days that even now, when we have virtually nothing to fear from any but the tiniest and most parasitic of them, we think we need to push them out of our lives? The 600 pound people you mention, gorged on hamburgers – have any of them actually ever killed and eaten an animal? I’m guessing no, and so they have not experienced the true exchange of life force that meat eating is. They don’t revere food, and so it grows on them like a cancer.
And it is hardly their fault. Where would they find the animals in today’s world? Who would teach them how to hunt? Does our modern education system teach us ANYTHING that we need to know to interact with our world as a species? No, it doesn’t. We think we are not a species. We think species are things you learn about in boring high school science classes.
«« Back To Stats Page
Home Stats